Waste disposal

Tebbit

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Why isn't something being done in this country to bring in stricter laws and penalties regarding waste disposal? Many people don't have bins - what are they doing with their waste? I'm sure some are being responsible but many aren't!!!
The roads are littered with black rubbish bags all thrown out of cars - it looks awful. I wish more of an effort was made to catch these people and penalties were huge.
The Local Authorities should be doing some sort of checks to see what people are doing to get rid of their waste. If you don't have a bin what are you doing with it?
 
Local authorities don't really care that much. The work involved is costly and the fines applied by courts are miniscule, thus taking action costs far more than the cleanup

Now if fines were increased dramatically for dumping of anything in excess of 1kg of waste to €100 per volumetric kg and at the same time apply an annual service fee of €150 to property tax so you get recycling bin collected at no additional cost and just pay for actual waste collected.

But that would require politicians and councillors to actually take the issue seriously
 
At this stage I think garbage collection should be effectively free and government should focus efforts on getting original producers of waste to reduce the amounts produced not the end consumers-disposers. "Polluter pays" is an impossible principle to enforce in reality.

Industrial\commercial level illegal dumping should be tackled but I have zero confidence in any council doing anything about individual dumpers. CCTV isn't going to identify someone in the dark in a hoodie chucking out a black sack.
 
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CCTV isn't going to identify someone in the dark in a hoodie chucking out a black sack.
Identification isn't the issue in many cases. I'm aware of a rural area with frequent dumping of household waste. Black bags contained addressed post, and still the council didn't stop the problem.
 
Add €150 to the property tax charge and pass it on to the waste companies. No more paying the waste companies directly by the public.
The amount of rubbish being dumped (and also burned down the country) is getting ridiculous at this stage
 
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apply an annual service fee of €150 to property tax so you get recycling bin collected at no additional cost and just pay for actual waste collected.

€150p/a would be a massive rise in costs for recycling for the majority. Charging that and then more for regular waste on top will just exacerbate the problem of contaminated recycling bins. My green bin went out for collection 4 times last year, bringing in such a high charge would punish low volume waste producers, flat waste charges have been shown to be ineffective at reducing volumes.

CCTV isn't going to identify someone in the dark in a hoodie chucking out a black sack.

They use CCTV to capture the number plates, many prosecutions have been secured using this method. It is costly though, and limited in terms of coverage. The Pure project have identified more than 10,000 illegal dumping sites across the Dublin Wicklow uplands, unfortunately it's just not practical to cover much of that. If the fines were significantly increased it would fund more enforcement and these prosecutions might get a few more headlines.

Some of the larger dumping sites are the result of unlicensed waste collection companies doing house clearances. If the source was identified and the person who hired them was also held to account as per current legislation, you'd see a reduction in some of the most significant cases.

I think it was Kilkenny a few years back that introduced measures to check on householders who didn't have a contract with one of the licences waste collection services and seek evidence of how they were disposing of their waste.

More than 50% of waste in cities is cigarette waste, has anyone ever heard of a fine or prosecution?
 
They use CCTV to capture the number plates, many prosecutions have been secured using this method. It is costly though, and limited in terms of coverage. The Pure project have identified more than 10,000 illegal dumping sites across the Dublin Wicklow uplands, unfortunately it's just not practical to cover much of that. If the fines were significantly increased it would fund more enforcement and these prosecutions might get a few more headlines.

It's important to draw a distinction between large scale \ commercial level illegal dumping and where it is individuals.
In Dublin city centre and close suburbs, it's individuals dumping bags.
The large scale stuff should be more amenable to CCTV and a crackdown.

In terms of individuals:

Less than 40% of the fines issued by DCC were even paid:
https://www.thesun.ie/news/3096014/40-per-cent-littering-fines-dublin-city-council-paid/

DCC issued no fine for littering on beaches in last year:
https://www.98fm.com/news/two-councils-issued-no-fines-for-litter-in-dublin-200741

More than 50% of waste in cities is cigarette waste, has anyone ever heard of a fine or prosecution?

It's hardly 50% by quantity though. I would notice one black bag before noticing them.
I think I remember reading about a court case where cigarette was thrown from a car and someone got the reg.

But I can only find this from 2003...
https://www.independent.ie/regional...hrowing-cigarette-butt-from-car-27821020.html
 
https://www.98fm.com/news/two-councils-issued-no-fines-for-litter-in-dublin-200741

Pretty sad state of affairs. No amount of regulation on the compliant majority will address this without proper enforcement and real penalties.

It's hardly 50% by quantity though. I would notice one black bag before noticing them.
I think I remember reading about a court case where cigarette was thrown from a car and someone got the reg.

Correct, it's by item from the 2017 national litter report. I think it's symptomatic of a wider societal issue when so many see this as acceptable practice. The dumping of bags of waste is actually only a very small, albeit quite visible part of the overall littering issue.
 
I put out my green bin every two weeks. It is always full. I put out my brown bin about every 4 weeks. I put out my black bin about every 8-10 weeks.

The charge for the green bin is tiny so if you want to keep the cost down then recycle and use your Brown (organic waste) bin.


I moved to pay by weight and I spend less than €200 per year for all waste collection.
 
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